PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed diversified miner Independence Group will spend nearly 60% of its A$50-million exploration budget in 2018 on the Nova and Fraser Range project area.
Independence MD and CEO Peter Bradford told delegates at the Paydirt nickel conference in Perth, on Tuesday, that A$9-million would be spent to explore the Nova mining lease, with a further A$21-million going towards the greater Fraser Range tenement area.
“Outside of Nova, we have progressed a consolidation strategy and accumulated a land holding in the Fraser Range of some 12 000 km2 over the last 12 to 18 months,” Bradford said.
“We’ve done this to leverage off our investment and infrastructure at Nova, and also because we believe there are more Novas to be found on the Fraser Range.
“The reason they haven’t been found is because the systematic exploration that needs to be done to unlock those discoveries, hasn’t been done. Nova is a recent discovery, and since then the land area has been held by underfunded exploration companies that at the bottom of the nickel market, lacked the access to capital to do that.”
The flagship Nova nickel project is expected to produce 26 000 t/y of contained nickel and 11 500 t/y of contained copper, at an all-in sustaining cost of A$1.83/lb. The project will initially operate for ten years.
In 2018, the mine is expected to deliver between 23 000 t and 27 000 t of nickel, between 10 000 t and 12 000 t of copper and between 800 t and 1 050 t of cobalt contained in concentrate.